Whilst I write, I must apologize. I did not notice your illness. I am aware I shut myself away somewhat on my return from Dartmoor. I must admit, you did an excellent job of hiding your condition. I, however, broke my own rule. I saw you, but did not observe. It is not a mistake I shall make again.
Your return, safe and well, will be gratefully appreciated – by myself as well as the Watsons, who I am sure must be heartily sick of my constant company by now, although they are politeness itself. I am aware that I am a difficult companion, and a worse house-guest. Your ability to accept my failings and foibles without fuss or anger is greatly appreciated, I assure you.
Yours, as ever,
Sherlock Holmes
P.S. I have just heard from Mrs Watson that you are aware that Lestrade is bothering me about that death in April he wished investigated. I should tell you that I have been to Richmond. I have seen the house. I have done some research. I am putting the sparse facts together. Alone: Mrs Watson, Billy and Wiggins have been stubbornly, and loyally, silent.
I believe I know what you did. I believe I would have done the same. Have no fear: Lestrade will never know. You have my word.
Holmes.
I don’t know why, but I felt a little tearful after reading the letter. I ought to have destroyed it, in case someone found it, and let out that not only was I the Mrs Hudson, but I was there to spy – yet I could not bear to. Instead, I folded it neatly and tucked it into the spine of my copy of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
I had another visit from Mary that day. She looked tired, with dark smudges under her eyes. She flopped down into the chair by my bed.
‘I was out all night,’ she told me. ‘Wiggins and I were looking for the Pale Boys.’
‘Any luck?’
‘No,’ she said, as she yawned. ‘He says it’s just a fairy tale, and I think he’s right. Still, it’s the only lead I have.’
‘So far,’ I reassured her. She shrugged, demoralized.
‘I haven’t tracked down anyone who saw the boys go. I haven’t even tracked down anyone who cares!’ she said fiercely. ‘Well, that’s not true. There was that story of the boy stolen from a garden, do you remember that? Well, no, why should you. It was something Wiggins mentioned, he’d heard it from a friend, who picked it up from a ballad-singer, and then he’d talked to a boy who knew the police constable who was on duty at the time. A boy, around ten, who just disappeared from his garden one day. Nothing was ever seen of him again. It was quite the wonder at the time.’
I nodded.
‘That was about ten years ago. The parents went frantic trying to find him, but they both died, and when they were gone, no one carried on looking. The other boys had no parents, or parents who cared. They were too poor to look after a child. Or they think their boy has run away to a better life, and who I am to disabuse them?’
‘So people do care,’ I said. She looked up.
‘I was exaggerating,’ she admitted. ‘All right, people care. One or two, but not enough to do anything. Not to actually find them. It’s very frustrating.’ She sighed, and ran her fingers through her hair, dislodging at least three hairpins. They scattered to the floor, unnoticed.
‘How did they die?’ I asked. Mary looked at me, puzzled. ‘The parents of the boy from the garden; how did they die?’
Her face lit up.
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ she said, delighted. ‘It was awfully convenient that they were the most assiduous about looking for their boy, and they died. I’ll check.’
Well, that was my work done. I lay back and looked across at Emma. She was asleep now, but earlier the young man in the suit had been visiting her again. He left looking very pleased with himself. Flo was out of the ward for treatment, and Emma was left alone. Mary looked over her shoulder to see who was listening and then, satisfied, leaned in close to me.
‘I found something,’ Mary said, pulling a newspaper out of her pocket. It was one of the gossip papers that sprang up and disappeared again all the time. This was the Daily Crier, and it had a rather lurid reputation.
‘You read that?’ I said, surprised. Mary grimaced.
‘I would love to take the higher ground and say no,’ she admitted. ‘But it was just fascinating. To be fair to me, it was Sherlock who bought it. He thrives on gossip.’
She handed the paper to me. She had folded it over to an article all about Emma. It was mostly hints and possibilities. It managed to imply all sorts of salacious stories about her life without actually producing any facts.
‘It says she’s going to publish a book,’ Mary said. ‘There, right at the bottom.’
‘This was written by Patrick West,’ I said, reading the byline.
‘Yes, he writes hundreds of gossip columns. He’s been quiet for a while; now he’s sprung up again. I could swear I heard his name somewhere else though.’
‘We thought he might be the blackmailer,’ I said softly. ‘But Billy visited him. He’s old and housebound and blind, how can he be writing?’
Mary snorted in a most unladylike way.
‘Nothing stops writers. Believe me, I’m married to one. They could lose their sight, their limbs, their minds and still would find a way to write. Besides, I believe he has apprentices. Always young women, which doesn’t surprise me in the least. They take all his dictation and do all his typing and run about town for him.’
‘So where’s he getting information from?’ I countered. ‘There’s more to gossip columns than writing a story.’
I looked over to Emma. Now she was wide awake, and staring at us. She smiled.
‘Do you want to know a secret?’ she asked.
WONDERFUL STORIES
Well, of course we did. She beckoned us over. With Mary’s help, I got out of my bed and hobbled over to Emma’s, collapsing gratefully onto her chair. Mary sat on her bed.
‘We hear you’re going to write a book,’ Mary confided. I looked around. Flo was gone, Eleanor Langham was talking to Betty and her children, Miranda Logan appeared to be engrossed in her book. Still, we kept our voices low.
‘Oh, I am, my dear!’ Emma agreed. ‘Publish and be damned, as Boney told Harriet. Now there was a man,’ she sighed. ‘Told me I would have made a good general. Or a policeman! I would have done, as well. But I’m a woman, and what can a woman do?’
‘Live a life of quiet virtue, serving others, never complaining, always discreet and modest,’ I said dryly. It was what I had been told by my mother.
Emma laughed.
‘Given the choice, I would have chosen prostitution!’ she whispered. ‘Not that I had a choice. Sometimes, when I wake up at night, I think I’m a little girl, back in Edinburgh, picking pockets to survive. I was a useless pickpocket. Then one day I discovered I could charm the birds out of the trees and, more usefully, the money out of men’s pockets, and from then on, I was set.’
‘There must have been bad times, though,’ Mary said. ‘It can’t have all been champagne and roses.’ I knew she was thinking, like me, of the creatures we had seen in Whitechapel, in our last investigation, the grey, dying women selling their bodies over and over again for a few pennies.
‘I know I was lucky,’ Emma said softly. ‘I know what happened to others. But I was clever. I didn’t drink, and I kept my secrets, and I never embarrassed anyone – or married. Or fell in love. I never gave a man control over my life.’
‘You don’t regret anything?’ Mary asked. She wasn’t judging, she genuinely wanted to know.
‘Not a thing!’ Emma said happily. ‘Oh, I know what the likes of her think,’ she continued, waving towards Betty. ‘She thinks I ought to repent. She thinks I’m going to Hell. She thinks I ought to beg God’s forgiveness.’
‘Will you?’ I asked.
‘Not bloody likely!’ she cried, loud enough for Betty to hear, and be insulted. ‘As far as I can see, all my friends are probably in Hell anyway.’
She smiled softly.
‘That’s why I’m writing the book,
’ she said. ‘They’re all dead now, all the men and women I knew. People are forgetting them. They forget the laughter and the music and the stories, and they just remember the stuffy old portraits. They forget how much fun it was! Soon, no one will be left alive who knew these people. I don’t want those memories to die with me. Who’s left who knew that Marlborough told dirty jokes to the Queen, or that Albert was the most gentlemanly man ever, even whilst throwing me out of Buckingham Palace?’
‘So you’ll put it in a book?’ Mary asked.
‘Not all of it,’ Emma said, smiling mischievously. ‘Listen and I’ll tell you a tale.’
That afternoon she told us her life. Fighting a duel dressed as a man, escaping from France during yet another revolution, dancing through Russia, hiding politicians in her home as the mob called for their blood outside, making love on sheets of pure silk to men straight from the battlefield, charming even the most bad-tempered of politicians, secret meetings on islands with royalty, Venice in carnival.
It was glorious and wonderful, and daring. It reminded me of Irene, who wanted to sing and have adventures, and used men to give her these, but who had fallen in love and given it all up. It reminded me of Lillian Rose, the prostitute from Whitechapel who had been so badly betrayed by a man when young, and was determined to get out of that life, any way she could. I thought of the women of Whitechapel, who couldn’t even dream of a life like this. And yet the glamour of her life seduced me, and I found myself envying Emma Fordyce.
As evening fell, her voice trailed off, and she became quiet. She lay back on her pillows.
‘Will you remember for me?’ she asked weakly. ‘All of it. I’ll never tell some of those stories again. Will you remember?’
‘We will,’ Mary promised, tucking the sheet round the frail old lady. There was only a hint left now of the sparkle in Emma’s eyes.
‘I could have been a general,’ Emma murmured, ‘or Prime Minister. I would have made a fine Prime Minister, if only I’d been a man. Still, it’s all been a glorious adventure.’
She closed her eyes and went to sleep. Mary helped me back to my own bed.
‘Do you believe her?’ Mary asked.
‘I do, every word,’ I replied.
‘What did she tell you?’ Eleanor Langham called. ‘You were talking for a very long time. It must have been a long story.’
‘Only a fairy tale,’ I called back.
I told Mary that Emma had known Irene, and suggested she write to her in America (Irene had given us her address there) and ask her about Emma. We planned our investigations, mine into the ward, hers into the stolen boys, right to the last minute of visiting hours. But then later, Mary left, the lights were dimmed, the ward was quiet, and I knew that soon the nightmares, as every night, would come. I had dreamed disturbing dark dreams ever since April, but now, here in this hospital, in this bed, they intensified. Instead of once a week, they came almost every night. I didn’t remember the details. I didn’t want to. I just knew I woke sweating and afraid, staring into the dark, frightened of the fragments of my dream.
The ward was never quite dark. Moonlight streamed through the uncurtained windows. The lamp on the Sister’s desk at one end of the ward was a circle of light. The gaslight in the lavatory through the door at the right of the ward shone dimly. But all the lights did was cast shadows in the dark corners of the room. I would wake up, suddenly, and look around and swear I saw dark shapes – figures and creatures, dogs and boys. I would lie there, staring through the open door at the end, certain I saw a man watching me – only for it to turn out to be Nurse Taylor’s coat hanging on the coat hook.
Night-time began with the six o’clock tea, served round to all of us. It was dark outside by this time, and the ward was brightly lit. I dreaded the lights going down. But tea time was a moment of peace in the day.
Mind you, it was a busy time, what with nurses and visitors and doctors all up and down the ward. It’s hardly surprising the accident happened. The lady who served our tea collided with Flo, who was coming back from the lavatory. Flo could not stop herself falling, and as she fell, she grabbed hold of the lady’s arm, spilling her full cup of tea all over Emma’s bed.
Emma, luckily, was sitting up in bed, and not even splashed. Her bed, however, was soaked. In amongst Flo’s apologies and Emma’s amusement and the Sister’s irritation, it was decided that Emma would move to the bed at the end for the night, until her own could be dried and cleaned the next morning.
The bed diagonally opposite me: the one I thought I had seen someone murdered in.
For once, by the time the lights were switched off, we were all heavily asleep. It was nearly 3 a.m. when my usual nightmare woke me. It seemed to be a struggle for me to wake up, even just to open my eyes. My limbs were leaden, so heavy I could not even lift them. I couldn’t have moved for anything in the world.
I looked around. Miranda, also usually a light sleeper, was lying ungracefully, buried in her blankets. Even Eleanor, who barely slept, was snoring gently. I could just see Sister Bey sitting at the desk. There was no sign of Nurse Taylor, or the other nurse. I could hear shouting somewhere in the hospital. I guessed they had gone to help.
I stared into the shadows, waiting for them to resolve into something sensible and everyday.
‘Sister, we need help,’ Nurse Taylor whispered from the doorway. ‘He won’t quiet down.’
I felt rather than saw Sister Bey leave the ward and go to the nurses’ assistance. Then I was alone, only me awake, and that shadow that refused to go away.
I cannot move. My limbs are so heavy I cannot lift them. I cannot rise, I cannot twitch, I cannot even call out. I can only watch.
It’s all happening again, just like the first night. Out of the shadows comes a figure, slight and lean, all black. I can barely even see an outline, just a darkness against more darkness. It disappears by Eleanor’s side, then I see it again, standing over Flo. Then the figure is gone again, and now it stands by Emma.
Why won’t anyone wake up? Normally one of us wakes and calls or stirs or goes to the lavatory every half-hour. Why not tonight? Why can’t I move?
But then Emma herself wakes. She turns her head and smiles, dreamily. She looks around – then sees the figure by her bed. She draws breath to scream but he – she – it – pulls out Emma’s pillow and places it over her face.
But Emma isn’t going to give up her life so easily. She has fought for herself all her life, and she fights now. She flails and scratches and grasps at him, weak as she is, and one hand hits his cheek, I see it distinctly. He holds her wrists down, clambering on top of her to hold the pillow down with his knee. She struggles, but she is getting weaker. He shifts his position so he can hold both her wrists in one hand as the other presses the pillow down hard on her face. She twitches, once, twice, then lies still. Her body droops and sags, her hands fall loose. He removes the pillow and her eyes open, staring silently at the ceiling.
He looks at her for a moment, then steps back.
That is when he turns and looks directly at me.
He walks towards me, his footsteps utterly silent. Quickly I close my eyes. He must believe I slept through the whole thing. He must. I cannot hear him, but I am aware of him standing at the foot of my bed. I couldn’t fight him off if he attacked me. I’m weak as a kitten. I would be able to do nothing but lie here and die.
I ought to take my punishment. I’ve been thinking I deserve it. But I don’t want to die. I want to live, and punish him for Emma’s death.
I can hear footsteps, quick and light. Nurse Taylor has returned. I can hear her go from bed to bed, quickly checking us all, then pause by Emma’s bed, and gasp, just once, a tiny sound, then a muttered low conversation.
I opened my eyes. The shadow was gone. Nurse Taylor was holding a lamp over Emma’s bed.
‘Poor thing,’ I heard her say.
‘Passed away in her sleep,’ Sister Bey said, and I heard her pen scratch as she noted it in her logbook.
‘Nothing we could have done even if we had been here.’
‘At least it was peaceful,’ Nurse Taylor said softly.
I wanted to say ‘No, no, that’s not right! That’s not what happened! I saw it!’ but my mind was fuzzy, my voice silent, my eyelids heavy. As they made arrangements to take Emma Fordyce to the mortuary, I slipped into heavy dreamless sleep again.
DEATH IN THE NIGHT
I would have doubted the entire experience when I woke up, except that Emma’s bed was empty.
I’m not sure you can understand, now, so many years later as I write this, when the streets are full of light and we can banish the darkness in the corners by the flick of a switch, just how terrifying the night was back then. It was true that gaslight had brought illumination of a kind, but it was a strange, otherworldly flickering light that made the shadows come alive. Once the sun had gone down, we lived in twilight, and it was easy to believe in creatures that lived in the dark. So you see, trapped in my hospital bed, still not able to move easily, surrounded by strangers, certain I had seen one if not two murders, it was understandable that I was terrified.
Eleanor had offered to clear Emma’s locker, as she had no family, but the nurses said no, they would do it. Miranda and Flo watched as the nurses placed screens round the bed where Emma had lain. Later, when the visitors arrived, there was the same young man in a suit who had visited before. All Emma’s belongings were given to him.
Flo was sad at Emma’s death, but seemed to accept it.
‘It is the wish of the Lord,’ Flo said softly.
‘As if the Lord would take such a creature to his bosom!’ Betty insisted. ‘She was a vile creature.’
‘De mortuis nil nisi bonum,’ Miranda murmured. She seemed angry, as far as I could tell, for someone so restrained. She seemed to vibrate, almost, with rage as she stared at Emma’s bed.
‘What? What heathenish thing are you saying now?’ Eleanor snapped. She seemed uncomfortable, shaken even.
The Women of Baker Street Page 6